Understanding the Weight Bias of Technological Change

Technology and international competition have revolutionalized labor market conditions.

While a vast literature has analyzed the potential factors affecting calorie intake, we know less abut
the role of technology and labor market changes in explaining the rise in obesity. Our main contribution is to focus on the role of job tasks changes induced by large labor market transformations

International competition, technology and automation have revolutionized job tasks contents. While a few decades ago most workers were employed
in highly physically intensive jobs, today most jobs entail minimal physical effort.
A handful studies analyzed the effects of trade exposure on health exploring income and labor market mechanisms as well as demand effects (Pierce and Scott, 2018; Shaur et al. 2017; Adda et al. 2018; Giuntella et al., 2018)

 We add to this strand of the literature by highlighting the effects of international trade on calorie burned at work and in turn on obesity.  \color{black}

Furthermore, we contribute to a very recent set of studies analyzing the effects of AI and automation on labor markets (Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2018; Dauth et al. 2018; Graetz et al. 2015)

Indeed to the best of our knowledge this is the  first paper exploring the effects of exposure to robots on health.

In this paper we explore how these supply-side shocks affected physical intensity and calorie expenditure at work.

We examine the effects of trade and automation on physical effort at work. To identify the effects of trade and automation on physical activity and weight, we exploit variation in exposure

to international competition and robots across areas and sectors. We document a 

a marked decline marked decline in average metabolic expenditure at work between 1980 and 2000. Furthermore, we show that

robot exposure across CZ decreased work physical intensity and increased the share of sedentary employment.

In particular, a one standard deviation increase in robot exposure increased the share of sedentary jobs by 0.07 standard deviations

we also show that a 1 standard deviation change in exposure to trade with China increased the share of sedentary jobs/hours by approximately .3 standard deviation

and that a 1 standard deviation change in PC adoption increased the share of sedentary jobs/hours by approximately .11 standard deviation